I was reminded of something Oliver was always saying. Having for some years contributed cartoon strips to the national dailies, he knew a lot about the Press. He liked the buzz of that world, frequently got into long drinking sessions with journalists. But he often told me that, as a profession, they overrated themselves. ‘Think they’re much more important than they are. All tin-pot junior reporters see themselves as Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward in All the President’s Men, bringing down governments by their fearless investigations. Changing history – huh. Whereas the average journalist is just an unoriginal hack with a drinking problem.

‘And the fuss they make when one of their number dies. Journalists always get a disproportionate amount of obituary space. As if they’re really important. And very few of them are even mildly important. Except to each other.’

I felt the unblinking focus of Ingrid Richards’ lion eyes on me. ‘Niall Connor the journalist?’ I hazarded, hopefully not about to sound stupid if it turned out to be another Niall Connor.

‘Yes. Niall Connor the journalist.’ It was a different kind of contempt she put into that word. Somehow more personal than the way she had disparaged her husbands.

‘Niall didn’t believe in marriage,’ she went on. ‘Or perhaps I should say that he didn’t believe in marriage until he got married. To Grace Bellamy, of all people.’

That was a name I did recognize. She was one of those women who had views on everything and shared them with the public through a regular column in the Daily Mail, along with frequent radio and television appearances. She had also been a regular presence in lifestyle magazines for decades.

‘I know who you mean,’ I said. ‘Another journalist.’

‘Hardly a journalist,’ Ingrid sneered. ‘A Dial-An-Opinion slot machine, maybe? One of those sickening women who is professionally positive. All the bloody time. Something to say on every subject, gets a column out of everything that comes into her life. Do you know, she actually wrote a book about her own menopause? For God’s sake! As if it’d never happened to anyone else. That’s not journalism, not real journalism. In fact, it’s hard to think of a lower form of literary endeavour.

‘Do you know, Grace Bellamy once tried to set up an interview with me? Don’t know how she’d got my contacts, but I suppose you can get anything online these days. She’d done her research – or got someone to do the research for her. She knew where I lived, she knew something of my habits – the Gauloises, the Jameson’s – don’t know how she found all that out, but I suppose plenty’s been written about me in the past, easy enough for a researcher to access.

‘Anyway, she rang me, asked if she could write a feature on me for one of the Sunday supplements – can’t remember which one it was. Right wing, anyway, that’s her kind of demographic. I politely thanked her very much but said I didn’t like having my name associated with lightweight tabloid journalism!’ She chuckled with relish at the remembered put-down.